Ember Therapeutics, a Boston, MA-based newly formed company focused on leveraging recent findings in the area of brown fat to develop a proprietary pipeline of peripherally-acting treatments for metabolic disease, including Type 2 diabetes and obesity, has launched with a $34m Series A financing raised from Third Rock Ventures, LLC.
Founders of the company are:
– Bruce Spiegelman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School;
– Patrick Griffin, Ph.D., chairman and professor of the department of molecular therapeutics at The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Florida; and
– C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., professor of medicine, Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School, along with Third Rock Ventures.
Members of the scientific advisory board are:
– John Amatruda, M.D., formerly senior vice president and franchise head for diabetes and obesity at Merck;
– Sven Enerbäck, M.D., Ph.D., professor and co-director of the Sahlgrenska Center for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research, University of Gothenburg;
– Jeffrey Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., professor at Rockefeller University and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute;
– Vamsi Mootha, M.D., professor at Harvard Medical School;
– Jan Nedergaard, Ph.D., professor at The Wenner-Gren Institute of Stockholm University; and
– Jasbir Seehra, Ph.D., co-founder and former chief scientific officer of Acceleron Pharma, Inc.
Led by President and interim CEO (and partner at Third Rock Ventures) Louis Tartaglia, Ph.D. and COO Michael E. Solomon, Ph.D., Ember Therapeutics is developing a pipeline of large and small molecule programs designed to augment and activate the body’s brown fat, amplifying the natural ability to efficiently burn fuel stores such as glucose and lipids to reduce stored calories in the body.
FinSMEs
15/12/2011